


The night before the battle

by tissaias_piglet



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Piglet, Pre-Battle of Sodden, Tissaia is an emotionally-repressed mess, Yennefer is also an emotionally-repressed mess, piglet piglet piglet, so many feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27376489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tissaias_piglet/pseuds/tissaias_piglet
Summary: It's the night before the Battle of Sodden and our two favourite emotionally-repressed messes finally talk about some things they should have discussed decades ago.Y'all should know by now that I suck at titles and summaries. There are more feels in this than my cheerful description suggests.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 6
Kudos: 72





	The night before the battle

They spent the night, that final night, sleeping out under the stars. Triss stared up at the starry sky with childlike delight until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer and fell asleep with a light smile on her face. Sabrina bitched about how uncomfortable it was until someone yelled at her that she was a sorceress, so why didn't she just use her powers to conjure up a softer blanket and then shut the fuck up. Tissaia curled up under her fur-tipped cloak without a word, as though she'd been sleeping outside in such privations for years. Yennefer would have expected nothing less from their stoic rectoress.

And Yennefer herself, well, sleeping outside brought back certain memories she preferred to forget. She almost expected to smell the shit of the pigsty, feel the dirty straw rough against her cheek. Even the feeling of Sabrina's warm body against hers – for all the mages slept as close together as possible to share their body heat – wasn't enough to stop her from descending into her own memories.

She remembered the first day she met Tissaia. The abject, flaming embarrassment of being negotiated over like a piece of fucking meat, like the beast the beautiful, cold witch said she was. Meekly following the woman – whose name she didn't even know – to her horse and cart, trying to silence her footsteps and make herself as small as possible. The excoriating shame of being handed a bucket of cold water and told “clean yourself up”. The ringing silence that lay heavily between them on the journey, broken only by the sound of the horse’s hooves and Yennefer’s occasional sniffs.

It had been decades since she'd allowed herself to dwell on those memories, and she pulled her cloak tighter around herself, as though it would keep them from flooding her mind.

It had taken just a few months for her to realise what Tissaia – even if she herself had been the ugliest, most unlovable girl in the world before her transformation and ascension – never could have. Her sheer, vicious self-hatred and paralysing self-doubt were the things preventing her from being able to perform even the simplest of tasks, not a lack of talent. With practice, she learned to feel her own power, and once she did that, she could feel the way it was sapped by her thoughts. And so she stopped them. She stopped them with wine, with manipulating people, with narcissism, with sex, with hurting others, and most importantly, with keeping Tissaia de Vries as far away from her as possible at all times.

And yet, she had still come running like a lovesick puppy when she'd heard that Tissaia had asked for her. Despite her best efforts and all the bridges she'd burned, the relationships she'd destroyed, she was just as pathetic and weak as she had been that first night at Aretuza. Nothing had changed.

If she listened carefully, she could pick out the rectoress' slow, steady breathing from all of the soft noises of sleep surrounding her. It would be a lie to say she hadn't thought once or twice about poisoning Tissaia's wine or holding a pillow over her face, but her hatred had mellowed somewhat, and she no longer actively wanted to hurt her, only perhaps emotionally.

_Tissaia?_

_Yennefer._

She wasn't surprised that Tissaia still sounded annoyed with her. Their last conversation – as with, she realised, almost every conversation they'd ever had – hadn't ended well. Tissaia had accused her of always being fatalistic, which was a fair criticism, although Yennefer felt that in the face of certain death at the hands of hordes of barbaric Nilfgaardians, it was a very acceptable time to be fatalistic. In turn she had rather crudely implied that Tissaia was planning to take Vilgefortz to her bed – or what classed as a bed in this pissant castle ruin – simply because they might – definitely – all die tomorrow.

_I don't have all night, Yennefer. Did you want something?_

_Never mind._

_Oh piglet, piglet, piglet. Decades go by and yet you still don't change, do you? Come here._

As though there was a string tied around her heart and the other end was wrapped around Tissaia's fingers, Yennefer felt physically compelled to do as Tissaia told her. She got to her knees, pressing her cloak gently up against Sabrina's back not out of any tenderness, but to stop her from being woken by the cold and the lack of a warm body beside her. The last thing she needed was anyone to be awake and listening to what she said. It was bad enough that she was even considering saying such things.

Tissaia was close, surprisingly close, so it took no time at all for Yennefer to crawl over to her. The rectoress lifted her cloak, wordlessly encouraging Yennefer beneath it, and they lay uncomfortably close together, face to face, for warmth. The watery moonlight illuminated Tissaia’s softly lined skin, giving it a strange, almost yellow cast, and glittered on her thick, dark sweep of hair like tiny diamonds. She noticed Tissaia was shivering, but out of respect said nothing, knowing she would hate to have it pointed out to her if the situation was reversed.

_I'm sorry, Tissaia._

_Have you ever used that word before?_

It was a fair swipe, and Yennefer felt a bright spark of shame as she thought about the way she had spoken to Tissaia. It wasn't the rectoress' fault that Vilgefortz had got her back to Aretuza under false pretences, but still she'd felt the strong need to prove that she wasn't just Tissaia's lap dog.

_I deserved that._

_You did._

_I'm sorry for that too. I'm sorry for... oh, everything._

There was a pain in her voice which she would normally have been ashamed of, but she couldn't bring herself to feel anything other than weary sadness. It was, perhaps, that sound of genuine remorse which emboldened Tissaia to reach out and rest her hand on Yennefer's shoulder.

“I forgive you,” Tissaia murmured, and Yennefer did feel shame then, shame that after everything, she could be forgiven so simply and yet honestly by a woman she'd painted for decades as her enemy. The three simple words wounded her more deeply than any weapon could, and as much as Yennefer had tried to believe that she'd cut herself off from getting hurt by others, she still felt the unfamiliar pricking of tears, a burning tightness in her throat.

“I would have forgiven you even if we weren't...here,” Tissaia added after a moment, as though it was important to her that Yennefer understood the depth of her feelings. She rubbed Yennefer's shoulder slowly and reassuringly, maybe able to see the tears gathering in her eyes.

“I don't deserve that,” Yennefer murmured, choking back a sob. “Why? I hurt you. I ignored you. I- I hated you. I could go on. I hated you and everything you, Aretuza, the Brotherhood, stood for.”

“I deserved it,” Tissaia said simply. “You wouldn't be the only ascended mage who hated me for things which happened at Aretuza, Yennefer. Why do you think the only ex-students who ever visit me are people like Philippa Eilhart? Nothing I said to them ever sank in, and they gave me more sleepless nights than I ever gave them. It's why they can still look me in the eye without wanting to cry or hit me.”

Yennefer let out a tiny, unexpected laugh. “You mean _bitches_ like Philippa Eilhart?” she asked, and Tissaia snorted softly in lieu of a response. “You did what you thought was best, Tissaia. Most of us already knew that life was hard, it's not like it was a lesson we needed to learn, but you taught us something valuable. Just because we're sorceresses and have power and can do things others can't, it doesn't mean we're automatically respected and shielded from being hurt.” Her mind drifted briefly back to her time at court, to being ignored point-blank, or sacrificed like a pawn in political games, or threatened with having her position terminated if she didn't allow the king to take her to bed.

“You started our teaching the moment we arrived at Aretuza. You taught us that just because we'd been rescued from our shitty lives, it didn't mean everything was suddenly going to be roses and wine and happiness. We'd have gone to court clueless without you, Tissaia, and we would have suffered for it. You did what you had to do as our teacher, and the fact you keep doing it, even knowing that it means a lot of the girls will end up hating you, just shows how strong you are and how much you care.”

Tissaia rubbed her forehead. “I...hadn’t thought of it like that,” she said slowly, seeming slightly lost for words. “I’ve never really given any thought to my own feelings, I’ve just concentrated on teaching girls what they needed to know.”

Yennefer had begun to shiver now too, and she moved closer to Tissaia. It was basic survival, nothing more. “And you do it well, Tissaia. So well. But how long has it been now? Decades? Centuries? Have you never stopped to think that maybe you need – and deserve – to put yourself first for once? Look after your own feelings?”

Silence lay heavily over them, like the kind of luxurious, weighted blanket they were both desperately missing. Tissaia opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. She tried to smile, but it seemed sad and hollow. As Yennefer looked again at the delicate features of Tissaia’s face, she was seized by the need to _know_. It didn’t matter, not really, not compared to the seemingly-insurmountable task facing them the following day, but still, if she was going to die in the next 24 hours, it seemed as good a time as any to ask.

She reached out, brushing a lock of hair back from Tissaia’s face so she could meet her eyes properly, surprising herself with her own boldness. Tissaia looked questioningly at her, and Yennefer rushed on before she could stop herself. “All of the sorceresses I’ve known had their appearance fixed during their transformation so they stayed looking somewhere in their mid-20s,” she began, “but not you, Tissaia. Why? Why did you choose to look older?”

For a moment, Tissaia looked as though she would deflect the question, or tell Yennefer it wasn’t her concern, and Yennefer felt her heart fluttering like there was a tiny bird trapped inside her chest. Truly, she didn’t know why this tiny piece of Tissaia’s story was so important to her, but it was. Tissaia – her history, her motivations, her choices – was not so much a sealed envelope as a message written in a centuries-old extinct language, hidden in a magically-sealed bottle, sitting on the very deepest part of the ocean bed, protected by magical enchantments too complex for any living soul to penetrate.

Yennefer wanted to unravel at least one tiny part of the tightly-tied knot which was Tissaia’s life, thinking with a sudden fierce determination that if the rectoress had only shared a little more of herself, she might not have grown to hate her so much. It wasn’t true of course, and if she’d possessed even a little patience, she would have realised that. She did not stop to think that if she pulled too hard at one thread, Tissaia might unravel altogether, because deep down, she didn’t believe that it was possible for that to happen to someone as strong as Tissaia.

“Being rectoress was all I ever wanted,” Tissaia said softly, so softly Yennefer had to move closer to hear her, and she watched Tissaia’s lips spelling out the words as much as heard them. “From almost the moment I set foot in Aretuza, I knew I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay, train, and become rectoress. There was no room for failure, or other dreams. I knew I’d never be accepted at court if I looked anything less than flawless. If I changed my appearance to look older, less beautiful than the other sorceresses, it meant I had to become rectoress, or I’d lost my chance at everything. It was my commitment to the future I envisaged for myself.” Tissaia released a shaking breath, and gave the tiniest nervous laugh. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

Silence stretched between them, so absolute that Yennefer could hear every tiny noise. Slow, even breathing, sleeping bodies shifting, and around them, the tiny rustling and pattering of the creatures who owned the night and would continue to do so long after the mages had made their stand against Nilfgaard. An owl swooped low on silken wings. Yennefer couldn’t find the words to express what she wanted to say; hearing – and for the first time, really understanding – Tissaia's dedication to becoming rectoress made her realise how much she’d wasted her decades as an ascended sorceress.

“Say something, piglet.” Tissaia’s voice was as strong as ever, but there was a vulnerability in it too, something Yennefer rarely heard. She reached out and ran the very tips of her fingers down Yennefer’s cheek, her face softening when they met the tracks of tears. “Oh, Yennefer.”

“Don’t stop,” Yennefer heard herself say, reaching out and covering Tissaia’s hand with her own, pressing the rectoress’ palm to her face. She closed her eyes at the simple enjoyment of being touched, and turned her face slightly, bestowing the smallest kiss on Tissaia’s palm. Letting her own hand drop away, she waited for Tissaia’s reaction. She could almost hear the frantic overthinking and overanalysing, and then Tissaia uttered a tiny cry and pressed her lips to Yennefer’s.

The kiss seemed to last forever, and yet be over before Yennefer could really process what was happening. As they broke apart, she cupped the back of Tissaia’s head gently, preventing her from moving too far away. “What did you do that for?” she asked, feeling Tissaia’s soft, slightly panicked breaths on her lips. “I’m not complaining, please don’t think I am.”

Yennefer should have realised that Tissaia’s answer would tear at her heart. “I wanted to know,” Tissaia murmured. There was no need to finish the sentence. _Because I might not get another chance_. There were tears in Tissaia’s eyes, and Yennefer knew they were mirrored in her own. Keeping one hand on the back of Tissaia’s head, Yennefer cupped the rectoress’ face and leaned in to initiate another kiss. Tissaia’s arms came around her, holding her close, and time melted away.

“Tell me you’re not just doing this because of what might happen tomorrow?” Yennefer whispered. As much as she was enjoying the unexpected intimacy, she needed to understand. She didn’t want to feel like Tissaia was just using her. A fine drizzle had begun, dampening their faces and hair, and Yennefer was grateful that it hid the tears on her cheeks. The owl swooped overhead once more, this time with a soft call which made Yennefer feel almost unbearably lonely.

Tissaia ran her thumb over Yennefer’s trembling lips. “I’m not doing this because of what might happen tomorrow,” she assured her, “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, you just didn’t see.”

“Love me?” Yennefer asked breathlessly, holding Tissaia’s gaze as steadily as she could, “please, love me? We both need to forget.” She took Tissaia’s hand, waiting for permission, then encouraged Tissaia’s fingers low down between them.

The sun rose on Yennefer clasped tightly in Tissaia’s arms, both of them wearing the same soft, contented smile.


End file.
